Exploiting Spin-Orbit Torque Devices as Reconfigurable Logic for Circuit Obfuscation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel circuit obfuscation method using spin-orbit torque devices as reconfigurable logic, enhancing security by making reverse engineering extremely difficult while reducing area overheads.

Contribution

The paper proposes using SOT-based look-up tables for obfuscation, providing a physical security layer and reducing design overhead compared to traditional methods.

Findings

Reduces area overheads by 10% on average.

Increases attack complexity exponentially.

Improves security against reverse engineering.

Abstract

Circuit obfuscation is a frequently used approach to conceal logic functionalities in order to prevent reverse engineering attacks on fabricated chips. Efficient obfuscation implementations are expected with lower design complexity and overhead but higher attack difficulties. In this paper, an emerging obfuscation approach is proposed by leveraging spinorbit torque (SOT) devices based look-up-tables (LUTs) as reconfigurable logic to replace the carefully selected gates. It is essentially impossible to identify the obfuscated gate with SOTs inside according to the physical geometry characteristics because the configured functionalities are represented by magnetization states. Such an obfuscation approach makes the circuit security further improved with high exponential attack complexities. Experiments on MCNC and ISCAS 85/89 benchmark suits show that the proposed approach could reduce the area overheads due to obfuscation by 10% averagely.